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April 10, 2015

The Bible, False Teachings and God

I've been thinking a lot about Luke chapter twenty-four since writing about it at Easter. Particularly verse twenty-seven:

"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself."

This is what Jesus wants for us as well. To teach us about Himself through Scripture.

There are so many voices in the Christian world today, sometimes my head spins with it all!

With those voices are many false teachings and one of those teachings, is that we don't need to read our Bible, rather God wants us to have supernatural experiences to reveal Himself to us.

But didn't I just read Jesus saying He reveals Himself through the Scriptures?
And are not the Scriptures awe-inspired by God?

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." 1 Tim. 3:16-17

Is the Word of God not sharper than any two-edged sword?

"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

I desperately need the Holy Spirit to guide me through the Word of God, giving me discernment in examining myself and coming to the Truth, not to make me fall on the ground, bark like a dog or see glory clouds, feathers or gold dust coming from the sky.

GOD PARTED THE RED SEA.

Really think about that.

Amazing, right? I think so. : )

This is the Red Sea from space taken by NASA

Do a few feathers or gold dust make a miracle that show His majesty? No. These so-called miracles are foolishness. They mock God Almighty. Don't believe it. Even if you see them don't put your trust in them.

I recently stumbled upon and read a review of a book called 'When Heaven Invades Earth' by Bill Johnson of Bethel Church and it taught this very thing...that we should desire spiritual experiences over listening to the Scriptures.

Coming from a Pentecostal background, I was shocked and my heart broke.

It made me cry out before the Lord, Lord help us! Give your people discernment. Bring us back to Your Holy Word and humble us before You.

If you choose to read it, read it slowly and in prayer. It's a long and through one.

What this book teaches is so subtly wrong, that many don't see it. I have read many books on what the new age movement teaches and I saw many similarities. It was extremely unnerving. It crushed my spirit knowing hundreds of thousands are under these types of teachings.

...Then I started goggling and found that Johnson and his wife promote something called 'grave sucking.' I'd never heard of it before but was absolutely horrified when I saw his wife laying on C.S. Lewis's grave trying to suck up the power of the Holy Spirit through Lewis's dead bones.

This is occultic. God's Spirit is not in the grave! Let me say that again.

God's Spirit is not in the grave!

God help us! Give us discernment!

Turn our eyes towards You.

I've been praying for several days now and asking the Lord to give me wisdom about all this.

I'm in the middle of reading Tozer's book 'The Dangers of Shallow Faith' and have found great encouragement. Thank-you Lord for Tozer! I really needed to hear what Tozer had to say here.

A.W. Tozer says:

"Men are not willing to let God be what He says He is. They attempt to change, correct, alter and apologize for God, in an attempt to make Him be other than what He is.

God is, and the angels want Him to be what He is. God is, and the elders and the saints and heavenly creatures want Him to be what He is.

We had better want Him to be what He is, and conform ourselves to what He is."

And then:"God is what He is, and we had better learn what God is and then conform our teachings to that truth."

I want to conform to what He is. Nothing more, nothing less.

Many teach less of Christ, rarely speaking of the cross. And others teach more than Christ in their exaggeration of mysticism and experiences.

I want only Him.

And if I want only Him I must conform to Him alone. I must accept everything He says of Himself in His Word. Everything. His love and His judgement. His compassion and His righteousness.

Tozer says here:"Truth concerning God means that we must accept God's sovereignty, His holiness, His justice, His grace, His love and all that the Bible says about God. Concerning ourselves, it requires that we must believe in ourselves as a fallen image of God - ones who once bore his image, but fell."

And Abraham Lincoln once said:

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”

We must see God for who He is and always contend for His side. We must teach what He taught. We must preach what He preached. Nothing more and nothing less.

Tozer encourages us to read the book of Jude. A book that cries out for us to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

Jude writes:"Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common
salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to
contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the
saints." Jude 1:3

Tozer says of reading Jude:

"Get your teeth into something. Dare to believe something. And dare to stand for God. In this awful day of so-called tolerance, men are ready to believe anything.We are not called to always show a smile.Sometimes we are called to frown and rebuke with all long-suffering and doctrine. We must contend but not be contentious.

We must preserve truth but injure no man.

We must destroy error without harming people. In earlier times, when men were wrong, they contented, and in contending, they became contentious. In an attempt to preserve truth, they destroyed those who held error. Let us preserve truth but injure no man."Tozer is encouraging us to contend for the faith in love.

He continues here:

"Dare to contend without being contentious. Dare to preserve truth without hurting people. Dare to love and to be charitable.Let us put our chin a little higher and our knees a little lower, and let us look a little further unto the throne of God for Jesus Christ, who sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

Let us be courageous, but tender; severe, but kind. And let us pray in the Holy Spirit and keep ourselves in the love of God, building up ourselves in the love of God, building up ourselves in the most holy faith, and win all those we can till the day of the glory and the song."

This is my hearts desire. To contend for the faith in boldness and truth as well as in love and kindness.

And this can only be done through Christ.

My heart does not want you to walk away from this post condemning Bill Johnson or any other, but rather to come away with a desire to search the Scriptures
for the Truth. I want you to know the true God and have a heart that conforms
to Him and Him alone.

Hello, I agree with you 100 percent. You wrote this perfectly; I couldn't have said it better. I'm an orthodox christian but I truly believe in God's miracles. It boggles my mind how people can twist christian beliefs. My best to you.

Hi Sandi, I wondered how this came about as well and unfortunately found out this is not something new within charismatic circles. Benny Hinn was promoting and teaching this many years ago. And before that it had been practiced by pagans for thousands of years. It's called necromancy and it seeks to receive power from the dead. A practice forbidden in Scripture. (Deut. 18:10-12)

This is what it is: "Grave sucking or mantle grabbing is the belief and practice of pulling the supposed Holy Spirit powers from the dead bones of a previously empowered believer. It is taught that when a Spirit empowered individual dies their mantle or mission dies with them. In other words God’s mission for that believer was thwarted when that believer died." ( http://youthapologeticstraining.com/grave-sucking/ )

Firstly, they try to use 2 Kings chapter 2 to justify what they are doing, but have wrongly and dangerously interpreted it. Elijah was very much alive when God passed his mantle onto Elisha. Secondly they use 2 Kings 13:20 unwisely, where a dead man was thrown into Elisha grave and when touching his bones came to life. This act was not to receive power from Elisha, but to fulfill prophecy. The man did not take up Elisha mantle.

Hope that explains a little bit. Its hard to comprehend the deception that is abounding in Christian circles. It almost seems unbelievable.

Oh my word...grave sucking? Ugh! I had not heard of this. I do know of Johnson and Bethel Church, and am very wary of them. But this is hideous. I'm so glad you referenced the Tozer book. I have not read it, but will be ordering it. My small group is doing a study of the book of Titus and the main focus of that book is Paul urging Titus to teach SOUND DOCTRINE. Lord, how we need sound doctrine in our day. Bless you for this wonderful post. Stopped in from Grace & Truth.

Thank-you for your encouragement Leah! Tozer is one of my favorites. He always turns me towards Christ with love and truth. Hope you are blessed by his book. I am half way through and can't wait to read on. : )

Beautiful. You have given so much time to grow your faith and I appreciate that you share what you've learned to us.Those are really good reads. I must find them and start enriching my own faith as well.

I would be very careful NOT to critize those who move in the gifts and anointing of the Holy Spirit. If we can believe in the miracles of the Old and New Testaments, then surely we can believe in gold dust showing God's approval on the glory cloud in a meeting. The soldiers who came to arrest Jesus, fell to the ground when he said, "I am He." They could not stand in the real power of God and fell down. I do understand there can be wild fire, but I have also heard it said, "There are enough wet blankets to put out the fire," Real and wild alike. Personally I have not seen the Gold dust, but several trusted ministers tell me they have seen it and I believe their word. Why is it necessary? I don't know the reason, but it certainly does get people's attention when God is blessing a meeting. A good man can say a wrong thing, and it can also be taken wrong. Elisha wanted Elijah's mantel as he believed it carried with is an anointing - - if he knew where Elijah's grave was, he might have wanted to lay on it. Or how about the pit where the prophets holy bones lay, as did one dead prophet's bones; - a dead man was made alive when he was cast into the pit with the Prophet's bones. Wow, the Bible has some strange happenings, but I believe them every one. Axe heads floating on water, salt healing poisened water - People raised from the dead! - weird would you say? It is all there in the Bible. Oh Lord, I desire the reality of your power and presence, and even some gold dust would be nice to have around here! :-)

Hi Hazel, your comment is very familiar to me coming from a charismatic background.

Many live in fear of speaking out against false doctrine because they are told to NOT criticize the leaders, as if they were greater than the rest of us. But Paul wrote to the Galatians:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Gal. 3:28

We are one in Christ. No one is greater than another.

I am so thankful and grateful for my humble Lord Jesus, who never uses intimation against me. I used to be so afraid to speak out but now I know how beloved I am and how gracious He is. He has called us all to divide the truth.

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 Tim. 2:15

I believe all Christians are called to the great commission, not just some who claim to have an "anointing."

I also very much believe God is a God of miracles, but I see nothing profitable in these things that are happening and therefore question them. You ask why these things are necessary? I ask the same thing. I believe every miracle God preforms is for a purpose . To guide His people (cloud by day, fire by night), to show His compassion (healing the sick) and to reveal His Son Jesus Christ (the resurrection). These are just examples, there are so many miracles pointing to Christ in Scripture it's incredible! Gold dust does not point to Christ, but rather causes hysteria in services.

As far as Elijah and Elisha stories go you can read my reply to Sandi above, where I address this.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to express your thoughts. I really do appreciate everyone's opinions.

Glad to find your blog on Soli Deo Gloria link up! Your thoughts on books are inspiring, and I especially love that picture of the chair with the stack of books on it! Blessings to you as you read and blog.

Cathy, I tweeted your review here: https://twitter.com/MaryHill16/status/588030628853059584 Thanks for linking up with Literacy Musing Mondays. I feel this a very important discussion of how we should read literature about the Bible and faith. Thanks for sharing!

I couldn't agree with you more - God's Word is sufficient for us. I have friends who look for those extra experiences but don't take the time to immerse themselves in the Word which makes them vulnerable to false teaching. Thanks for sharing!

Hi Barbara, it's always sad when I hear that. I often think about the garden of eden and how Satan deceived them into thinking God was hiding something more from them. Why is what God has revealed to us not enough for some? We need to just rest and be satisfied in Him alone.

Balance is so important with this issue. God absolutely does perform miracles, and the holy spirit does indeed speak to us. But, we must not let this be the only way we experience God. The word is crucial to our faith, and discerning our experiences. When we feel we've had an experience from God, it needs to line up with the truth of his word. It is certainly dangerous when believers put high emphasis on supernatural experiences- a friend of mine was doubting she truly belonged to Jesus because she had not spoken in tongues or had visions, like everyone else at her church. It's a careful balance- we can't discount God's ability to speak to us, but we must not forget he has given us the word. Thanks for sharing.

We had better want Him to be what He is, and conform ourselves to what He is."

Beautifully said Kelsey. I agree balance is key. I feel so sad for your friend, I will pray for her, that she sees that God's love is enough for her. It's about Him and what He has done, not about us and our experiences. His gift of salvation is free and we can rejoice in that.

People do a lot of crazy stuff. It can be so easy to get pulled into doing tangible things (i.e. laying on a grave) in order to get what we desire (whether that actually be more of God or more of self). I fully believe that we need to consult and believe scripture first - how else will we know whether or not something is truly real AND pleasing to God? Such a good post you have written.

Thanks Cathy. I recently had a discussion similar to this to my little group of homeschool students. We were discussing the story of David and Goliath and that some people - some Christians - say Goliath was just a very tall man. We talked about being very careful to whom we listen to and that God's word trumps all. God's word says he was so any cubits that are equivalent to over 9 feet tall. We should believe God's word over man's word.

My mind is truly blown. Grave sucking is another (not so flattering) word for necromancy that pagans have been performing for thousands of years. To think that someone would perform something like this and do it in the name of God is very scary to me! I try not to be one of those people who shouts "the end times are coming soon," BUT more and more false teachings from false prophets will start coming out of the woodwork as the time nears!

I was horrified when I read about it. It seems so disrespectful to our Living God.

We could have a whole other discussion on the end times, couldn't we? : )

I think Jesus said “Surely I am coming quickly” Rev.22;20, so that all believers through the centuries would be diligent in serving Him and always keeping our eyes upon Him, while we wait for His return. : )

What a great post and I appreciate you linking up at Good Morning Mondays. We have come to a point in our journey that if it doesn't line up with the Word of God and it is only man's opinion then we aren't interested. Only God's word is truth. Thanks and blessings.

You've had so many wonderful posts lately, and I've done a horrible job of commenting before my tabs are closed, but I did want to thank you for this one! I immediately put Tozer's book on my list, and was thrilled when the kindle version went on sale. Needless to say, I grabbed it, and I'm looking forward to its encouragement. Thank you for recommending it, and warning me against the other. I wasn't aware of the things surrounding that author, so I appreciate knowing not to pick up his books.

Welcome to my blog!
A blog of thoughts on books I've read with a few extra thoughts thrown in. : )
I'm a wife and mom of three. I love reading and learning, gardening and listening to good music and I love spending time with my family.
My hope is that this blog brings honor to the Lord and some encouragement for you.